[ to you alone, lord, i lift up my soul ]

My heart trusts in you, I say,
"My times are in your hands."

[ psalm 86: 4, 31:15 ]

--we wait in hope--

"and wait expectantly...

...for he who has promised is faithful."

{psalm 33:20, psalm 5:3, hebrews 10:23}

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. V

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. IV:

It was just a little bit after seeing the light again at the top of the dark pit I was in, as I was slowly, verse by verse, bit by bit making my way up out of this dark tunnel, when I next stumbled upon a passage that became my prayer and declaration for 2011.

Something that in that moment and still today was a battle cry and a declaration of whom and whose I am and whom and who I will trust. Whom is my God, my King, the One leading and guiding me. After becoming more and more encouraged at the way all of these verses and passages were speaking to me, I wrote this down in my journal:

2011: the year we will see your glory, a time where You will do more than we could ever ask for or imagine, as I was reminded of one of my favorite verses in the book of John:

“Did I not tell you that if you only believed,
you would see the glory of God?”
(John 11:40)

Yes, Lord, we want to see your glory, be glorified, I wrote in the margins of my Bible.

After that as I said, I ran into the beginning of psalm 25, words that I read again while sitting in there at Starbucks but as tears continued to well in my eyes and I was now shaking my head and laughing to myself, I literally could not believe that the words I was reading on the page so directly reflected all that my heart wanted to say.

“Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.”
(psalm 25:4-5)

Wait, WHAT????

I remember just sitting there stunned. Shocked. Speechless.

Those words completely capturing all that I couldn't find the words to say. Yes, SHOW ME your way, Oh Lord... guide me in YOUR truth, not mine, Your truth and teach... for yes, you alone are God my Savior and I will not stop placing my hope or my trust in You.

Wow.

So He began to show me, how we were going to proceed on this journey, how we were going to do this. My hope and my faith is in Him because He is the One who is faithful. Who will always come through for me and take care of me no matter what. The One in whom I have learned again and again that I can trust and on whom I can fully rely.

This God who gives us hearts and the grace and the strength to trust Him. Even when uncertainty is all we see.

“Faith has an object. Our faith not blind,”
but sees, fixes its eyes on the Only one who can.

So we wait in hope and in hope against hope, we will believe.

"For He who has promised is faithful."

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. IV

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. III:

Him on the journey, Him in the here and now.

I just cannot even explain it all, life is so much more than having answers to all of our questions or all that is uncertain. Life is so much more, God has so much more for us than just that.

We find that it is possible to have peace even as all our questions hang in the balance. Even when we do not know what the future or next day even holds. Even when we do not know any tiny bit of what the roads look like from here. Even when we do not know how we are going to make it through.

::

I remember being in that place at the beginning of the year, New Year's Day to be exact and everything within me was not excited about the new year. I refused to accept or embrace it. I knew what 2010 held, what will this year also bring?

I wasn't ready nor did I even want to find out. I remember literally sitting at the threshold of a new year and everything within me was filled with dread.

I could not for the life of me get these first few words of The Healing Path out of my head,

“Opening our arms to a day is an act of faith.”

And I remember thinking... okay, if opening our arms to a DAY is an act of faith, then what about a YEAR??

I simply was not having it. 2010 held more life than I thought I could handle and I wasn't ready nor wanting any more.

I remember it was some time after that, I think a couple days into the new year when I was continuing to ask and wrestle and battle with God on my disdain and fear with beginning another year.

I remember saying, God, how are we going to do this?
Show me how. Tell me how.

I remember sometime in this period of time while I was at Starbucks, the first day, New Year's Day, I ran into these words, “The Lord is my shepherd...” towards the end of my time there and those words alone gave me all that I needed to feel the raging seas within begin to settle, and that reminded me, that He was still my shepherd, He would still be leading me, guiding me through it all.

It was then that I remembered that if I had known all that 2010 had in store, on January 1, 2010, I'm not sure I would have gone on this journey. I certainly wouldn't have signed up for it, but I realized, I did not know then what the next few months and year would bring. I didn't know that on January 1, 2010.

But, NOW, on the other side of it, I know far too WELL what those months and that year brought and all that a year can bring, and I was like, God, I am not really all that excited about going on this journey.

Well, it was in finding those words and being reminded that the Lord was my shepherd that I was began to experience a deep peace. I do not know what this will look like, but He will be here leading and guiding me through it all.

It was when I began to see God IN the new year
that I was able to take a step into it.

When I began to see and remember that there was not a single step of this I would have to face alone, I was able to, though still resistant, even begin to think facing it all and taking a step and trusting Him.

What happened next was a most uncanny experience.

Once again, what I happened to be reading at that point in my One Year Bible directly OH so directly intersected all that I was dealing with and wrestling through at that moment it is just not even right. I was in Hebrews at the time and the next series of verses were the start of what I have called “ladder rungs” that each played a critical role in me slowly climbing out of the hole and the pit I was in.

It was as if each verse was like a light that illuminated the path, a stepping stone and the next place on which to set my feet and that each verse was like a ladder rung that appeared as I slowly made my way out of the hole, something that I could cling to as slowly one by one, I made my ascent out of that dark place.

“But my righteous will live by faith...'

was one of the first verses that literally flew off the page and flew right into my face. I remember sitting there, tears in my eyes, everything within me began to calm as I realized again, my God who speaking to the very depths of my heart.

I wanted to know how we were going to do this, how I was going to do this, and I heard my Savior say, you will do it by faith.

You, my beloved one, will live by faith.

Not by sight.

Not by all I wished and hoped for and wanted to see in the new year so I knew how to best prepare myself for it, see any crisis or storm coming at least a mile away, know that I would be okay, I wanted to rid myself of any anxiety I had with opening my arms out to a new year.

I wanted a certainty I felt I needed,
a certainty that would make it a lot easier for me to step out into the unknown.

But, that day I heard and I figured out how I was going to do this. That this journey would continue to be one not lived by what my eyes could see, but a journey not of the feet, but of the heart, the place where only God can go with me.

A place that would require me to live and walk by faith.

Not my feeble and limited sight and understanding, but one that would place its trust and hope and security in the One who is faithful.

The One who, as Hoops said, because He is faithful, we can have faith.

A faith that we cannot conjure up or muster up on our own.

But a faith and a belief and a conviction that is only possible through and because of Him.

A faith that comes as we fix our eyes on Him.

A faith that as Hoops described Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego as possessing,

“They were uncertain of the future, but confident in God.”

--

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. V

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. III

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. II:

But, LIFE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

I feel judged and misunderstood a lot when it came seem like I am “okay” with my situation and being sick or not having a diagnosis or conclusive answers on my condition.

But, there is so much more to it, to this than that.

If I lived in that, if I was still, and don't get me wrong there are days and times where I am NOT okay with all of those things, and there is a time and a place to grieve and that happens in various stages and cycles and times, but the thing is, if I was or we were still hung up on that, we would have missed out on all that God had for us on this journey.

I would have missed out on the God who was there in the midst of my non-answers, doubts, fears, questions, laments, grief, and uncertainties.

I would have missed out on His power to sustain even when you have nothing and everything that you once had and all that life once looked at, had been taken away.

I would have missed out on the comfort that only His love and presence can provide when everything feels hopeless and everything within you is just reeling, wondering, where do we even go from here.

I would have missed out on the God who has allured me, spoken tenderly to me in the dryness of the deserted, created and given me life in abundance in this season, a season of gain, though outwardly a time of loss.

I would have missed out on so much of the healing and teaching and challenging and restoring and awakening God has been doing in both of our hearts through a variety of people and places and journeys and experiences.

I would have missed the God who has been with me, through all the roads that have been traveled.

I would have missed what has been my greatest gain.

I would have missed HIM.

--

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. IV

waiting in hope, not in vain, pt. II

CONTINUED FROM... waiting in hope, pt. 1:

Anyway, as I was saying, as I was trying to figure out some of the weight of what I was feeling this morning and continuing to wrestle with some I have known I've needed to do for a while, but all of why it is so outside of my comfort zone and my deep resistance and unwillingness to face some of those things as well as what has felt like a “final embrace” relating to my story and the journey of my life the last 20 or so months, the first few words of this verse kept coming to mind, “we wait in hope..." (psalm 33:20)

As I began searching through the psalms for it, I continued to think about why those words affect me so. Why do they capture and reflect so much that is within my heart but that I have not found the words to accurately express.

I think it is because, as Hoops talked about last night, faith has an object.

When we hope or when we place our faith in the Lord, we are not submitting ourselves to “blind faith” or making this “leap” of faith into the unknown.

No, we are simply placing our trust and fixing our eyes not on ourselves, not on our situation or circumstances, but on the One who IS FAITHFUL.

The One in whom our hearts can hope. Hope and never be disappointed or put to shame.

We do not wait or hope in vain.

My hope is in the power of the One true, the living God, who is here, who is good, who is faithful, and who is powerful. Strong and mighty. Mighty to save.

The One whom alone holds the very words of life. Who with just the sound of His voice called this earth into existence, created the heavens, calms the stormy seas.

I LOVE the words... “we wait in hope...” 

For in waiting, as a people of God, waiting does not mean we just sit idly by.
Waiting is not passive, but active. Waiting requires trusting.

Trusting in the midst of uncertainty, something to which we are all called to, as Hoops said, “Uncertainty is common to us all. We all live with uncertainties...

We all live with maybes, not yets, and I don't knows...”

And that tension, as he described, that tension to which we live in, the tension of all that is uncertain in our lives, is not to be avoided or ignored, but to be embraced.

For I believe it is there we are called to die and rise again to new life. I believe it is there we are stripped away from all we once held dear, but count now as lost. I believe it is there that we discover what it truly means to be alive, what it truly means to be living, “as the master cuts the cloth and re-weaves it to His design.” (Dan Allender, Wounded Heart)

It is there, here, in the midst of uncertainty that I have found life.

More life, more peace, more joy than when “grain and wine abounds.” Life independent of and not dictated by my circumstances or all that is going on in or around me.

Life that has drawn me deeper into a love relationship with my Father and Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a life that is so much more than anything I could have found.

As Hoops was talking last night, every single one of his words captured the journey my life has taken these last 20 months. An incredibly personal experience lived for an audience of One, and one shared with none other than the great I AM.

The great I AM we encounter when we wander in the desert. In a dry and weary land, but find that we are not alone...

Realize that there is someone providing bread for each day, someone providing manna, someone providing sweet honey from a rock,

streams of living water, streams in the desert, someone who we find is sustaining and meeting our every need in the very lands we felt would have brought our ruin.

Someone who has come. Come that we may have life.

As Hoops was talking, it spoke to so much deep within my heart and what this journey has looked like for me, words that I have never felt I could just share aloud. Talking about faith is risky for me especially now because it can sound like something overly church, over-spiritual, and something that I am just saying or regurgitating because that is what Christians are supposed to do or say.

I find it risky especially in a situation where I cannot explain why I have this faith and hope in my God, a situation where I have often felt mocked or criticized or judged or looked down upon for my faith. Or had it interpreted as being in denial. But I know it doesn't make sense to maybe some, but the important thing is, it makes sense to me. And in my relationship with God.

I don't have to make others understand, because I can't nor do I have the power to do so nor is it my responsibility. I can't explain while even though the circumstances, yes, do suck, that THIS whole thing does not suck, for my God is with me and sometimes that alone is more than enough.

Hoops' words last night gave voice to much which I have felt ashamed of sharing, simply because of how many times it has been misunderstood. Yet, words that validated and spoke to and encouraged my heart and the battle I've been in.

How it is possible to have faith in the midst of uncertainty, believe in the power and sovereignty of love of our God even when everything in life seems to be spiraling out of control and our questions continue to go unanswered, and we are surrounded by heartache on every side.

As he was talking last night, it jogged my memory to another core theme in all of this... that there is so much more to life than having the security, the clarity and the certainty we all as humans deeply crave. The assurance. Answers. The understanding of it all we all think at one time or another we need.

CONTINUED IN... waiting in hope, pt. III

waiting in hope, not in vain

Was sitting out in one of my favorite places earlier today, our back porch, and thinking about and processing a ton of things.

My thoughts kept running in my head faster than I could get them out and something put this verse again on my heart. A verse that has carried special meaning for me since I first stumbled upon it I believe early this summer, but I really could not tell you.

The days and the weeks and the months run together now, if it weren't for writing the date each day on the top of my medical log at the beginning of each day, I really wouldn't be able to tell you what day or week or month we are in. But, even that isn't really an accurate reflection of reality to me.

Days and dates are just numbers to me now.

They seem to have little to no bearing on reality. I have found myself time and time again looking at the calendar, or my new planner, the first planner and the first time I have had to use a planner or a calendar in more than a year now as I've returned to work in a different capacity.

A capacity similar to what work has resembled in the last 20 months I have been sick, but re-entering more of the team aspect of my job in attending staff meetings and office hours and having more of my time spent with students still at my house when needed, but a bit more outside of my house now, and since doctors appointments or medical things have been the majority of what my calendar consisted of, I haven't needed a planner in a while because I have reminder cards on the fridge or in my purse about upcoming appointments.

However, now having a few more things going literally since July 28th when we first began entering this new season that begin little did we know it, but again with a toothache, life has become a blur of dentist appointments, doctor appointments, more tests, more x rays, cat scans, chiropractor visits, treatment plans, discovering what is now/currently attacking my body, grief, sorrow, peace, joy, devastation, heartbreak, heartache, lament, praise.

Meetings, reconciliations, sharing tears, sharing hurts, sharing pain, sharing wounds. Victories. Crushing defeats. More answers. Less answers. More possibilities/diagnoses. Only more questions. Huge boulders, obstacles, mountains being moved. A sense of feeling alive more than ever. Encouraged. More hopeful and full of life, full of passion than I have felt in a long time.

Yet also peppered with times of crashing waves of grief. Where the feelings of abandonment, confusion, hurt, criticized, judged, misunderstood, unknown come crashing to the surface of my reality with seemingly no warning at all. So many conflicting yet simultaneous emotions. Overall feeling an energy and a life and a hope and a passion I have not felt nor had in a really long time.

I cannot describe all that has happened in my life in the last 30 days alone, but I don't have to. I know my God knows and I know that I have lived it and that it is real and that that is enough. I can't really describe it but I can say there are days when I simply do not believe it all. All the change, healing and restoration just a few short weeks can bring. All the life that was crammed into a four-week period that really has felt more like a four-month period.

All that only the hands of the Lord, the LIVING God, can do.

The One who has the power to heal and restore our sinful and broken hearts,

heal and restore wound we never felt could ever be healed.

Heal and restore and change and mend and transform our human and feeble hearts.

Make them beautiful.

The One who is making everything, making all things new.

--

CONTINUED IN...  waiting in hope, pt. II